International
Healthcare
Leadership

Dr. David P. Roye, Jr. founded International Healthcare Leadership (IHL) in 2006. IHL developed as an outgrowth of the Children of China Pediatrics Foundation (CCPF). Incorporated in 1998 and celebrating 12 years of operations, The Children of China Pediatrics Foundation (CCPF) is a non-profit organization that sends medical personnel to Chinese hospitals to perform life-changing surgeries on disabled children living in China’s orphanages. CCPF is a tax-exempt, not for profit, publicly supported charity qualified under Section 501(c)(3) of the US Internal Revenue Code. Based in New York City, with an annual budget of $500,000, CCPF’s funds primarily go directly to the field and to support a part-time staff.

CCPF has created the International Healthcare Leadership (IHL) program to directly train Chinese healthcare professionals in the areas of healthcare policy and management. The International Healthcare Leadership (IHL) program will address the need for healthcare policy and management training by developing a 5-week non-certificate program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health where Chinese healthcare professionals will gain executive level training. The IHL curriculum will include, but not be limited to, health policy and management, health economics, biostatistics and epidemiology, and environmental health.

Armed with the knowledge and tools necessary to address current systemic barriers to healthcare distribution, these Chinese healthcare professionals will return to their communities to provide better health services for under-served communities, and more specifically, for disabled orphaned children. IHL will monitor its outcomes through pre and post surveys of participants to assess increased knowledge and impact a year after their return to China.

The objective is to provide tools and training specific to China in the areas of healthcare policy and management so that leading healthcare professionals and policymakers can begin to address systemic barriers to quality healthcare for underserved and disadvantaged populations. Following the 5-week non-certificate program, the participating Chinese healthcare professionals will return to their communities in China with policy and management skills that will increase the number of patients treated, create policies that improve healthcare service delivery to decrease mortality rates, including within vulnerable communities such as disabled children. IHL will monitor its outcomes through pre and post surveys of participants to assess increased knowledge and impact a year after their return to China.

IHL recognizes the importance of broad-based collaboration among healthcare leaders throughout Asia. For this reason, IHL in the process of expanding its reach to solicit the involvement of highly influential healthcare professionals throughout Asia. We are actively recruiting board members based in Hong Kong and Singapore with the aim of identifying partners who can bolster IHL programming and who can steward IHL's eventual expansion throughout Asia. In the last two years, members of the IHL Board have been cultivating relationships with academics and administrators in several Chinese universities, including Ren Min University, and have met with interested professionals in Hong Kong to recruit board members. In addition, IHL is actively seeking to incorporate in Hong Kong to expand its programming to the Pacific Rim.

Negotiations are currently underway with the Chinese Ministry of Health, Renmin University in Beijing and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health to develop a healthcare management and policy program for Chinese healthcare administrators and graduate students, and provide this much-needed education.

IHL has facilitated the development of curriculum and case studies focused on the Chinese healthcare system. The process has been a collaborative effort between the faculties and students of both universities, starting with a visit by Mailman School of Public Health faculty and students to Beijing in January 2008. In the summer of 2008, Renmin faculty and students worked for one month in New York City developing case study materials. Faculty is being selected, logistics are being discussed and plans are in place to welcome our first students in the summer of 2011.

IHL looks forward to the successful launch of the first public health policy and management course devoted to the Chinese Health System. Graduates of the course will return to their current positions within the Chinese government, hospital administration and healthcare institutions and begin implementing and sharing their knowledge. IHL looks forward to partnerships with other leading universities throughout China, and eventually to other countries.